Women writing of blood and thunder
there's nothing small about Little Women
I recently finished a book on Louisa May Alcott and her mother, Abigail May1, who became the first woman to be a social worker in Boston. Abigail was a feminist and fought for a better world her whole life. She had believed that by eschewing her father’s plans to betroth her to a respectable cousin she didn’t love, she was making a bold decision in choosing her own partner, in marrying for what she thought was love, when she wed the poor, transcendentalist head-in-clouds Bronson Alcott, friend of Emerson, Thoreau, the Peabodies, and Hawthorne. Instead, Abigail found herself becoming even more entrenched in the gender roles and confines of patriarchy that she had hoped to escape.
Abigail quickly learned that she would have to find ways to support her growing family. Bronson Alcott would repeatedly leave her for months while he pontificated on a life of the mind in public speeches that garnered little to no earnings. Abigail was repeatedly forced to ask friends and relatives for money to…
